'He proclaims that he is a confederate': Zwingli, the sacraments, and the Quiet Revival

Zwingli failed to work out any fully developed or coherent theology of baptism ... It is easy enough to detect the weaknesses in Zwingli's understanding. He isolates the various aspects of the sacrament. He has not true doctrine of sacramental efficacy. He has little or nothing to say about baptism as a sign of remission and regeneration.

G.W. Bromiley's introduction to Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' - in the Zwingli and Bullinger volume (1953) in 'The Library of Christian Classics' series - offers a stark but accurate assessment of the failings of the Zurich reformer's sacramental theology, not least when contrasted with "Luther and the more developed 'sacramentalism' of the later Reformed school". As example of such richer Reformation sacramental theology we might particularly point to the BCP Baptismal rite, Article XXVII, and the Catechism: the Anglican eye will particularly notice how Zwingli's 'Of Baptism' significantly contrasts with these formularies.

In this post, however, I want to consider how Zwingli's definition of Baptism and the Eucharist as "covenant sign or pledge" might have a particular contemporary resonance. Zwingli begins to expound the meaning of "covenant sign or pledge" by invoking the patriotic imagery of allegiance to the Swiss Confederacy:

If a man sews on a white cross, he proclaims that he is a Confederate. And if he makes the pilgrimage to Nähenfels and gives God praise and thanksgiving for the victory vouchsafed to our forefathers, he testifies that he is a Confederate indeed.

He continues by applying this analogy directly to Baptism:

Similarly the man who receives the mark of baptism is the one who is resolved to hear what God says to him, to learn the divine precepts and to live life in accordance with them.

Baptism, then, is a sign of our identity and allegiance. We might note that while Article XXVII begins by stating that "Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened", this - of course - is not denying that Baptism is such "a sign of profession, and mark of difference".

The signing with the Cross in the BCP rite of Baptism embodied this understanding, described in Canon XXX of the 1604 Canons as signifying what it is to "dedicate [the baptised] by that Badge to his Service":

We receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's flock, and do sign him with the sign of the Cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end.

Regarding the Eucharist, Zwingli likewise presented it as a sign of our identity and allegiance:

And the man who in the remembrance or Supper gives thanks to God in the congregation testifies to the fact that from the very heart he rejoices in the death of Christ and thanks him for it.

As with his theology of Baptism, this is hardly a sufficient eucharistic theology. It is, however, an aspect of the Sacrament's meaning which should not be overlooked or set aside. Consider how it is echoed in the BCP's post-Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving:

and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son. And we most humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship ...

What is more, something of this is also reflected in Augustine's emphasis on the Church seeing itself in the Sacrament:

you are yourselves what you receive ... So receive the sacrament in such a way that you think about yourselves (Sermon 227);

you have what you have received. So just as you can see that what has been made is one, mind you are one yourselves too in the same way, by loving each other, by holding one and the same faith, one and the same hope, an undivided charity (Sermon 229);

What you receive is what you yourselves are (Sermon 229a).

Aquinas also pointed to this as he considered the various names given to the Sacrament:

With regard to the present it has another meaning, namely, that of Ecclesiastical unity, in which men are aggregated through this Sacrament; and in this respect it is called "Communion" or Synaxis.

Thus, while Zwingli's eucharistic theology is, like his baptismal theology, insufficient, this particular aspect of his understanding of the Communion has deep roots in sacramental teaching over centuries. Our identity and allegiance as Christians is set forth and renewed in the Holy Communion.

Zwingli continues to expound the Sacraments as signs of our identity and allegiance when he compares them to the rites of the Old Covenant:

Baptism is a sign which pledges us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The remembrance shows us that Christ suffered death for our sake. Of these holy things they are signs and pledges. You will find ample proof of this if you consider the pledge of circumcision and the thanksgiving of the paschal lamb.

Mindful of the place of Circumcision and Passover in Jewish life as means of expressing and deepening identity and allegiance, Zwingli's emphasis that the Christian Sacraments perform the same role in the life of the Church significantly illustrates his understanding of them as "covenant sign or pledge": here is our identity as Christians.

This is where we turn to the Quiet Revival. Much commentary on the Quiet Revival has recognised that the cultural turn by some younger people towards Christianity is partly driven by the desire for a more rooted identity that that offered by a flattened, rootless, confused secular culture. In such a context, Zwingli's view of Baptism and Eucharist as expressions of identity and allegiance can have resonance. Here in these Sacraments is an identity and allegiance that gives meaning and purpose, rooted in the saving acts of God in Christ.

In many ways, this is not new. The desire of parents when they bring children for Baptism is often expressed in terms of raising their children as Christians. When it comes to the Eucharist, it is what many of us experience quite powerfully when we are administering or observing others receiving the Bread and the Cup: "we being many ... are one body".

Water, bread and wine - they are signs of who we are, of our identity, of 'us', of what it is to be Christian. That Zwingli's sacramental theology, first proclaimed in the cities and villages of the early 16th century Republica Helvetiorum, may have resonance in early 21st century societies is, perhaps, not entirely surprising. Baptism and Eucharist have always shaped Christian identity and sacramental theologies have always, in some way, recognised this. It is in Zwingli, however, that this aspect of the Sacraments predominated. Perhaps, then, in the context of the Quiet Revival, of responding to those refugees from an exhausted, tired, empty secularism who are seeking an identity rooted in that which is substantial and enduring, we should be paying attention to, and incorporating more substantially into our sacramental teaching and practice, Zwingli's emphasis on Baptism and Communion as signs of identity and allegiance.